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The Two Cromwells 



A TRAGEDY IN THREE ACTS 



BY 

LIDDELL DE LESSELINE 



CINCINNATI 

STEWART & KIDD COMPANY 

1918 



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Copyright, 1918, by 

LIDDELL DE LESSELINE 

All Rights Reserved 

Copyright in England 



MAR I iSi8 



PAGE 



CONTENTS 

Dramatis Personae , 5 

Prefatory Note 7 

Act I 17 

Act II 33 

Act III 59 



DRAMATIS PERSONAE 

OLIVER CROMWELL, Lord Protector of 
England. 

RICHARD CROMWELL, the son of Oliver, 
and his successor as Lord Protector. 

Edward Whaley, 1 Colonels in Cromwell's 
Richard Ingoldsby, j army. 

Charles Fleetwood, Oliver's son-in-law, and a 
General in his army. 

Isaac Desborough, Oliver's brother-in-law, and 
a General in his army. 

George Monk, ) ^ i • ^ n, 

John Lambert, } ^^"^"^^^ '" Cromwell s army. 

LL, I 



William Lenthall, "k -- , ,„ ,,, 

Sir Anthony I ^^^J^" "J ^'■°'"^^" * 

Ashley Cooper. ' <^*'"""*- 



Sir Henry Slingsby, a condemned conspirator. 
Mrs. Frances Slingsby, wife of the conspirator. 

A Lieutenant of the Guard, a Lackey, Pikemen 
and Musketeers. 

SCENE — IN LONDON. 

TIME — The end of Oliver's Protectorate, 
through to the end of Richard's. 

5 



PREFATORY NOTE 

The world's verdict is generally just. There 
is more poignancy than volume to the echo, in ex- 
perience, of the bitter musings of the mountain 
poet who lately sank to his rest beyond the Sierras : 

*'In men whom men condemn as ill 
I find so much of goodness still ; 
In men whom men pronounce divine 
I find so much of sin and blot'* — 

The misunderstood man, debited with the bad 
which is his in appearance only, and not credited 
with the good which is his in reality, is a rarity. 
Character, manifesting itself in a thousand ways, 
all corroborative and cumulative, is a cynosure for 
witnesses and judges, who are not slow or stupid 
in sifting evidence. If a man is weighed in the 
balance, and found wanting, there is a defect some- 
where; but both the judicial- and the non-judicial- 
minded will look for it in the man, and not in the 
balance. 

Now and then a verdict is reversed, or modified, 
because, for example, it is found to have been too 
largely shaped by party bias, or too largely based 
upon conduct, apart from its source and mould in 
the motive. Such a reversal took place in the case 
of Oliver Cromwell, when an impartial study of 

7 



PREFATORY NOTE 



his character showed that his dark deeds were the 
reflexes, not of a selfish ambition, but of a grim 
sword-and-pike religious-mindedness ; and, if we 
are to accept the humanitarian declarations of 
Richard Cromwell, at the time of his abdication, 
he, also, may be rehabilitated, and become as he- 
roic a figure, in surrender, as Oliver was, in con- 
quest 

Barren and uninteresting as the theme of the 
rehabilitation of Richard Cromwell would be, ex- 
cept, perhaps, to a society of antiquarians, there is, 
in his story, a suggestion of self-sacrifice, an ele- 
ment of renunciation, which should invest it with 
tragic dignity and pathos. 

One who is a studeat of the tragic drama, and, 
at the same time, of social and economic condi- 
tions, past and present, will find it rather singular 
that none of the master dramatists have ever 
broadly developed the theme of the altruistic obli- 
gation of a ruler, and of the sublimity of self-efface- 
ment, when volunteered out of compassion for the 
sufferings of those who bear the brunt, in the asser- 
tion of princely claims, and in the striving for per- 
sonal glory. 

The sacrificing of greatness for the sake of the 
calloused shoulders on which the cost of that great- 
ness is laid, should have been a far mightier theme 
in the hands of Sophocles or Shakespeare than any 
they ever undertook. It may be that the portray- 

8 



PREFATORY NOTE 



ing of human misery, with the vividness and pathos 
which distinguish the loftiest tragedy, Is not com- 
patible with the development of a general theme or 
of an abstract "problem," but no true believer In 
the potency of tragedy will be content to recognize 
that there are barriers against its entering a field 
which should be its widest and richest, — where Its 
teachings may soften the hearts of tyrants, and 
ease the lot of the misgoverned. 

Generous self-immolation could not, of course, 
escape the dramatic fancy of genius, hence the "Co- 
rlolanus" of Shakespeare, the "Alcestis" of Euripi- 
des, and the "Prometheus Bound" of ^schylus. 

The renunciation of Corlolanus Is, however, 
more that of a traitor brought back to his allegi- 
ance under the compulsion of the tears of his wife 
and mother; "Alcestls" is a tender, though. It may 
be said, a familiar picture of a wife laying down 
her life for her husband; and it is only in "Prome- 
theus Bound" that the motif of a martyrdom for 
the sake of the many is found. Yet the spectacle 
of Prometheus, a god, suffering the displeasure of 
Zeus for having imparted to savage man the arts 
which civilized him, and lifted him up to contest 
for dominion with the dwellers on Olympus, is im- 
pressive in the same way that distant lightning is : 
it carries no Immediate lesson to those who sway 
"the rod of empire." 

But tragedy, in common with the rest of the 
9 



PREFATORY NOTE 



so-called literary drama, not having flourished of 
late, holds itself much injured — a sort of Cinder- 
ella sister, dwelling lonely and neglected in the 
ashes of editorial and managerial pigeon-holes, 
while her wicked and empty-headed sisters, Vaude- 
ville and Musical Comedy, go flaunting forth to the 
stage. 

The fault has been altogether tragedy's, and 
not the public's. When melodrama undertook to 
masquerade as tragedy, the cheat was at once de- 
tected, but more insidious has been the masquerad- 
ing of pathology as tragedy — of pathology with 
its surgical riotings in individual post-mortems and 
social dissections. "I make men as they ought to 
be; Euripides, men as they are," said Sophocles. 
If Euripides could compare himself with a com- 
posite of his recent successors, he might say, "I 
make men as they are, in health ; John Doe men as 
they are, in disease.'* 

Good examples may be found on every hand. 
In the plays of some celebrated authors of the time 
we see tragic power busy with the gruesome and 
the morbid, without any of the adornment, the 
imagery, the philosophy, the grace, the irony, and 
the pathos, which enable the tragic drama to ful- 
fill its great ofiice of transmuting that which, in it- 
self, is sordid or contemptible into dignity, beauty, 
power, and majesty. The tragic drama may draw 
"iron tears down Pluto's cheek" in vain, if it 

10 



PREFATORY NOTE 



forgets that the actually diseased or criminal can 
have no appeal, unless, by the admirableness or 
sweetness of the tragic motive, they are transfused, 
as by the glow of a halo, — unless, by the richness 
of the dramatic ornamentation, they are clothed, 
as with regal purple. 

Nor can tragedy have cause to complain of the 
neglect and aversion Into which It falls when It un- 
dertakes to weave history into drama. Very great 
is the allurement, to the tragic dramatist, of such 
stories as those on which "Anthony and Cleo- 
patra," "Richard III," "Henry VIII," and "Julius 
Caesar" are based; yet, though immortal as histori- 
cal trag&dies, those plays were not competent ve- 
hicles for the splendors which confer upon "King 
Lear," "Hamlet," and "Othello" their primacy in 
tragic literature. For drawing too heavily upon 
history the one supreme dramatic faculty paid the 
penalty of the subjection of Its airy fancy to incar- 
ceration within the prison walls of fact. 

Yet, as to the struggllngs, glories, shames, and 
passions of the race, the record of what has been 
should be a safer quarry for dramatic raw material 
than the fancying by the dramatist of what such 
glories, shames, passions, and struggllngs may be. 
The dramatist may borrow from history If, on the 
one hand, he does not allow his art to be circum- 
scribed any more by what has been than by what 
may be ; and If, on the other hand, he manages to 

II 



PREFATORY NOTE 



keep within the verisimilitude of history. By blend- 
ing the historical, the mythical, and the apocryphal, 
he projects himself above the common reach of 
gravitation, where it rests solely with him to make 
or to mar his performance by the fullness or the 
flatness of his invention, imagination, philosophy, 
and soul. 

What, now, of the guilt of presumption for 
having spoken thus of the heights of Parnassus? 
He should be acquitted, who has done so, with his 
deficiencies weighing too heavily upon him to im- 
agine that he has reached an eyrie upon its sum- 
mit, or has begun to ascend, at its foot. 



12 



ACT ONE 



ACT I 

[Scene : Richard CromwelVs reception- 
room in Whitehall Palace. 

A convivial party is at table: Richard, Whaley, 
Ingoldsby, Fleetwood and others.'} 

Richard [glass in hand, as if proposing a 
toast}. Kerens death to thee, Grief! Here's thy 
shroud, thy grave, thy catacombs ! 

Ingoldsby. O, the same grasshopper will 
bury Grief, and all its grandchildren ; it's Care that 
never dies. 

Richard. Care is a sea; but here's the King 
Canute it does obey! [Holding up his glass.} 
King Canute! You roll back the flood of care; 
now still the wavelets of habit, which the six- 
o'clock reveille, and the dull, brutal tyranny of 
labor, awaken into raging breakers ! 

Omnes. It is decreed. [They drink.} 

Whaley. O, King Canute, now roll back the 
momentum, habit, and tyranny of pleasure! 
[Holding glass for a toast.} 

Omnes. Um-um, can we drink to that? 

Whaley. Too much is gout, — bloat, — 
drivel — 

Ingoldsby. Treason, Treason ! 'Twould be 
a lackadaisical, mechanical pleasure that would 
submit itself to the domination of rule or precept. 

15 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Whaley. Then, on, Canute, with the surges 
of pleasure, — ^wild, untam'd, furious, and tempest- 
uous — 

Richard. Whaley, you surrender gracefully, 
but that raw, heretical notion of yours constitutes 
a disturbance of our revel. Sirs, what shall the 
penalty be ? 

Ingoldsby. Ah, a song, — 't will darken his 
spotless Puritan soul with a little human discolora- 
tion. 

Richard [to Whaleyl, The penalty is too 
light. Sir Felon. We hang, for house-breaking or 
murder, though false doctrine like yours contami- 
nates, while false doing does not; yet out of grace 
and mercy, we allow you to alkali the acid of your 
guilt with a song. 

Whaley. O, kind masters, your leniency over- 
whelms me. 

Richard. Hold; we'll not punish ourselves 
by staying dry while you sing; nor shall we con- 
demn you to sing while parched with thirst; 't 
would be cruel and inhuman. [ They drink,'] 

[Whaley sings.l 
O, wise is he who wisdom spurns. 

When it of him a packhorse makes ; 
O, dolt is he who never turns 

To beauty, mirth and ale and cakes ! 

(Applause.) 
i6 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



O, great is he who greatness sheds, 
When it for him a treadmill raises; 

O, weak is he who fortune weds, 

When all around are love and daisies ! 

(Applause.) 

[Enter Lackey.] 

Lackey. Mr. Richard? 

Richard. Yes. 

Lackey. The Lord Protector is coming in; 
and there is a lady, who was afraid the Protector 
might see her. 

[The party breaks up in flight, carrying the 
evidences of their wassail zvith them.'} 

[Enter Oliver with Lieutenant. The LieU' 
tenant places himself on guard at the en- 
trance."] 

Richard. Have this chair, father. 

Oliver [seats himself weariedly; then, as if 
to throw of thought] . I dare say you find White- 
hall very gloomy, Richard? 

Richard. Not always. 

Oliver [musingly]. Work is no antidote for 
the perplexities which sit o' nights on my pillow. 

Richard. Why, work is the regular diet of 
those pillow-imps, father. They pamper up on it, 
and turn Into two-headed griffins, that generate 
calamities. I always starve 'em to death. 

Oliver. You must get into harness, Richard. 

17 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Richard. If I get Into harness, and pull half 
the world for a lifetime, shall I, or the world 
either, be any better off? 

Oliver. That notion would dam up the Sol- 
way, and make it a stagnant pond. Achievement 
may not bring joy, but to achieve not brings extinc- 
tion. 

Richard. To achieve is more apt to bring ex- 
tinction for others. That is probably the way 
Henry Slingsby looks at it, as between yourself 
and himself. 

Oliver. The wine of our advancement is 
drawn from a steep, wherein our merit is mixed 
with the disappointments and failures of our fel- 
lows ; but that does not hasten or darken the doom 
of a gallow's-bird. They say Slingsby has genius; 
yes, for crime. I look back and marvel at my 
escape from his cunning net. 

Richard. I'd be so thankful I'd let him go. 

Oliver. Let him go? Is your old infatua- 
tion laying snares like that for you ? 

Richard. I'd spare him, to soften a few ha- 
treds. It is not my infatuation that tells me harsh- 
ness does not win men ; nor would I like to believe 
that my infatuation lasted after Frances decided in 
favor of Slingsby. 

Oliver. Humph I To win men! You'd 
coax tough hearts and evil passions from their set 
ways by sentimental words and tender strokings ? 

i8 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Petting always gentles the hungry wolf, and dis- 
solves the scaly crocodile into a soft, self-sacrificing 
soul! 

Richard. To win men? What ruler ever 
troubled to do it? The motto is, *'Drive 'em; 
Drive 'em I" 

Oliver. You are not practical, Richard. If 
all men were equally consecrated, equally God- 
fearing, equally moved by high principle, a copy of 
the Code which governs Heaven is all we'd need — 
we'd be angels dealing with each other ; but as some 
of us who govern, and a few of the governed, are 
not angels, so must our methods partake of the 
non-angelical, the hard, and the cruel. 

Richard. Ah, we happily come to the flower- 
ing meadows, over a pathway through forsaken 
ideals and dead men's bones ; we greedily feed upon 
the immediate by a spendthrift discounting of the 
ultimate. 

Oliver. Whosoever putteth his foot to earth 
trampleth upon graves. Growth is more lusty, 
blossoming brighter-hued, tintings more varied 
over an Aceldama, once it is plowed. Be over 
dainty about this, and harder men will be quick to 
wreck thee or to slay thee, that they may build out 
of thy debris — that they may salvage a ha'penny- 
worth of marrow from thy bones. 

Richard. You are telling me the price of 
greatness. 

19 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Oliver. I am telling you the price of ex- 
istence. 

Richard. Danger and conflict and treachery 
are the storm on which the exulting, petrel spirit 
rises aloft. There is sunshine, there is calm — 

Oliver. I'll battle on, while my son dreams. 

Richard. O, those voices — they ring out 
above the melee, saying, "Back; for a doubtful 
good to one shall you be party to driving ten thou- 
sand to their doom?" 

Oliver. Old age is upon me, with its cheat- 
ing arithmetic, which adds but to subtract. I am 
facing the alternative of losing my authority if I 
do not assume the Kingship, and of losing my 
friends if I do. I am surrounded by traitors, of 
whom a swarm are back of Slingsby and Huet, 
their perfidy so deep, so fat with benefits, so cor- 
roding, that it is enough to eat out the immortal 
essence of the soul, leaving only the carnal rind, to 
wholly perish, as carrion, when I uncover their 
hiding places. It is time for you to come down 
out of the clouds. I need you to help me unearth 
the accomplices of Slingsby and Huet. 

Richard. That conspiracy is dead. It would 
be a fruitless cruelty to drag forth the trembling 
partners to it. 

Oliver. I'll struggle on, alone. 

Richard. Oh, if I could prove to you that no 
want of love holds me back — that such plagues and 

20 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



terrors as death might picket and phalanx about 
you could not I 

Oliver. I have never doubted you, Richard. 
You are weighing me against fantasies, and not in 
those scales of advantage where love and friend- 
ship are but as feathers against guineas and shill- 
ings — where a calculating David may balance, 
against his interest, a heart-broken Jonathan, with 
the nice, adjusting eye of an apothecary. 

[Enter Lenthall.l 

Lenthall. Your Highness, shall those 
weak children be orphaned at sunrise, to-morrow? 

Oliver. Those weak children have been tug- 
ging at my heart for many days. [He pauses, re- 
flecting; Richard lays a hand upon his arm.'\ 

Richard. To forgive may be thy diadem, to 
ray forth in the darkness, when thou and England 
art entombed. 

Oliver [still reflecting; then, with a rush of 
resolution"], God putteth his enemies under foot, 
and we of the Covenant — 

Lenthall. The sorrow of the little ones 
who will mourn the stroke is something of a coat of 
mail against wrath or justice. 

Oliver. There is no cruelty in beating down 
the cruel ; and we would be compassionate lovers 
of our kind if we hunted thost Stuart wolf-pelts un- 
til London streets grew lonely and weedy. Yet, — 
Lenthall, it is before me now, as it was even at 

21 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Tredah, that we know not how we shall be judged 
on High for putting out a light that God has lit. 

Lenthall. Thy sword Is God's and the 
Commons'. That It Is red Is due to the surgeon's 
office thou hast filled upon the perverse and wicked 
humors of this generation ; yet, a little mercy — 

[Enter Lambert.'] 

Oliver. Ah, Lambert, you are welcome. 

Lambert. I have come, Your Highness, to 
urge clemency for Slingsby and Huet ; not on their 
account — 

Oliver. Too late, Lambert, the decision is 
final. 

Lambert. Your Highness, It takes some- 
thing more than strength to make yoke-fellows of 
Justice and Anarchy. 

Oliver. Come, come, Lambert, confess you 
are disappointed that our altars will not smoke to- 
morrow with a whole hecatomb of royalists. 

Lambert. Who will not smoke upon those 
altars, if we do not get back to the bed-rock of re- 
spect for precedent — of obedience to a lawful Par- 
liament ? 

Oliver. How many more Nasebys and Dun- 
bars have we fought in Parliament than out of it? 

Lambert. There are those who love you for 
having sent Charles and Strafford to the scaffold 
for their contempt of Parliament. 

Oliver. In those days Parliament had not 

22 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



become the spleen which gathered to itself all the 
jealousies and hates of the State, — all the cross- 
grained, double-galled men in England. 

Lambert. How happy art thou, Pym, and 
thou, too, O Hampden and Eliot, for death to have 
shielded from thy sight the monument thy friend 
and pupil is rearing to thy teachings ! 

Oliver. Despise, if you will, because, when 
Parliament stood in the way, I swept it aside, the 
work which God appointed me to do, and which 
I did ; but do not say that Pym and Hampden and 
Eliot would join their crushing condemnation to 
yours, unless you know they would lament that I, 
their fellow-servant of the Covenant, when Britain 
was trembling from the scourgings of domestic 
tyranny, bound up her wounds, and put to flight her 
oppressors ; that I found her in the slough of for- 
eign contempt, and raised her to the crest of rev- 
erence ; that I found her a divided dove-cote, and 
made her a breeding-place for lions. 

Lambert. There^s no other way to make 
England great and virtuous than to goad and harry 
her into it — -no other way to keep righteousness up 
than with the prisons as a crutch and the whipping- 
lash as a stimulant! How much more purifying 
than hyssop is blood ! What a tender, ministering 
touch the hangman's is ! 

Oliver. This comes to me like an echo of 
the daylight blowing off in a royalist ale-house, 

23 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



after a night of tippling and vowing, and of poet- 
izing to the eyebrows of Prince Charlie's mis- 
tresses. 

Lambert. You will hear it said elsewhere 
than in royahst ale-houses that all this lawlessness 
is part of a program for making necessary the 
choosing of some other King than Charlie. 

Oliver. You are a soldier, Sir, and know 
how rancor and sedition must be met. A night in 
the Tower will sober up your thoughts. [ To the 
officer on guard.'] Lieutenant, General Lambert 
is under arrest. Conduct him to the Tower. [^Ex- 
eunt Lambert and Lieutenant.] Let us go, Lent- 
hall. Good-night, Richard, good-night I [£:v- 
eunt Oliver and LenthalL] 

[Enter Lackey.] 

Lackey. Shall I show the lady in. Sir? 

Richard. The lady? What lady? 

Lackey. I couldn't tell you, Sir ; she is veiled. 

Richard. Veiled? Well, show her in. [Exit 
Lackey.] Who can it be, to have waited all this 
time? 

[Enter Frances.] 

Frances I The same Frances ! 
Frances. I pray God it may be the same 
Richard. 

Richard. You have come to ask me — 

Frances. My despair, my knowledge, of 
your goodness of heart, bring me to you — 

24 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Richard. Ah, Frances, there is nothing I 
can do. 

Frances. Oh, there must be a way. Why, 
Richard, it is all artificial; a nod of the head would 
save him. The universe has not been jostled from 
its socket — chaos has not upheaved through the 
thin and brittle crust on which we stand; it cannot 
be his last night on earth. Oh, you must help me. 

Richard. How can I ? How can I override 
the Protector and Council? Stay; there is a loop- 
hole : tell me who the other conspirators are, and 
your husband shall leave the Tower to-night, a 
free man. 

Frances. Henry would not purchase his life 
by betraying a comrade I I would love him no 
longer if he wavered in the choice between living 
ignominously and dying nobly. 

Richard. You are choosing between your 
happiness and your high-mindedness. 

Frances. They are one and inseparable. 

Richard. Against those who stand fast, the 
surges of fate, which roll placidly enough where 
there is no resistence, beat and rage, as the surges 
of the sea, when they find a rock. 

Frances. If treachery must be his guide, he 
will not tread the way to freedom. 

Richard. I might have known that peril 
would not be the Gorgon to turn your generous re- 
solve into stone. Your courage, your constancy 

25 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



cannot but take some of the sharpness, some of the 
anguish from what awaits you to-morrow. 

Frances. If my husband is to die, I do not 
wish to lose any of the anguish of it ! I'll drink it 
in as the parched throat does spring-water ! Tears 
and heart-rackings shall be my only joys! I can- 
not give him up ! Oh, how can the flowers ever 
grow afterward on the hill where his life is 
quenched? How can the happy laughter of chil- 
dren ever echo there again, on the stillest summer 
eve ? Ah, what is that — so rigid and black, swing- 
ing and turning in the wind, with the crow perched 
upon it? Take it away — take it away. O, O, is 
this God's world or Satan's? [She swoons.^ 

Richard [supporting her and looking into her 
face'}. When angels visit us, it must be that they 
draw all grace and purity to themselves I As I look 
upon this lovely vision, a whispering comes to me, 
which, if I listened to, would shrivel up my soul I 
Oj villainous thought, is there no dagger that can 
reach thee ? I am a man, tempter, and not a dog ! 
At least, I thought I was. I have not kept up my 
prayers of late, and a leprosy has burnt its way 
into my conscience. It bids me to blaspheme and 
pour its contagion forth; — my loyal tongue will 
not do it; m}' sentinel lips would halt the first 
poisoned word ! 

Frances [dreamily and half aroused.} We 
are in Heaven, Henry. 

26 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Richard. No, Frances, you are very far 
from Heaven. 

Frances. Did you notice that the paths were 
all lined with lilies on one side, and with primroses 
on the other ? 

Richard. They were not flowers; what I 
saw were demons. 

Frances. Do you think a soul will be barred 
out forever because of the misdeeds of a moment? 

Richard. That question will never concern 
you, sweet lady, and those it does concern will 
never pause to ask it. 

Frances. Where is my husband? O, I 
know, I know. 

Richard [shaken; walking of in an attempt 
to collect himself; then, aside'\. A little more 
and I'll demand to be her husband's proxy, to un- 
dergo his doom. 

Frances [aside'}. If I am to give thee up, 
Henry, I'll give thee up alive, and not dead. I'll 
die in thy stead, nor shall I belittle thee by dying 
for thee only a physical death ! Shall I be so selfish 
as to be soothed by the sweet songs of angels, and 
by the blessed applaudings of virtue, whilst thou 
art being hurled into the infinite voids ? Yet, if in 
that way I sentence thee to live, thou'lt thank me 
with scorn and horror. I must pleasure thee, then, 
with death ? Why, for thy death to be ordered on 
such compulsion gives it sweetness and balm. I'll 

27 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



not have it. I'll have misery to the dregs. I'll 
have woe, contempt, despair. [She approaches 
Richard.'] Richard, you loved me once? 

Richard. Once? 

Frances. Have you forgotten how we wan- 
dered together through the green and flowery 
woods, where all was peace, save for the war be- 
tween the perfume of the blossoms and the musk 
of the pine, and all was silence save for the rivalry 
between the starling and the thrush? 

Richard. How could I forget? 

Frances. We were sometimes hand in hand. 

Richard. Oh, we were. 

Frances. Sometimes we sat by the shady 
brooks, while you read to me from the Faery 
Queene ; and sometimes I rested on your shoulder, 
not all from weariness. 

Richard. Fate, thou thief, thou tyrant I 

Frances. If thou wouldst find what fate 
hath stolen, let Henry go to France, a free man. 

Richard. To my rescue, God! To my res- 
cue, Honor! 

Frances. Take me to Plymouth Colony or 
to the Nile — to some cottage hidden among the 
vines, in a grove joyous with the singing of birds 
and the rippling of waters. 

Richard. Gloomier than the ocean we'd 
pass, when tossed by storms, and overhung with 
darkness, it howls and stabs itself with lightnings, 

28 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



because it cannot be the grave of humanity, would 
be all recollection of England to us. 

Frances. There, let us forget England, 
these dreary palaces, this tumult of ambition, 
which I know you hate. There, I'll make amends 
to you for what you said I did to mar your life. 
There, under new skies, let us mend the fragments 
of our lives and still the clamors of our regrets. 

Richard. 

True, true, I'd escape, — 

and with you, 
with you — 

Frances. Oh, the time is short. What is to 
be done? 

Richard. All I can do is to win over a turn- 
key, and to contrive an escape. Have you a safe 
means of reaching Henry? 

Frances. Oh, most safe. 

Richard. Write him to be ready at mid- 
night. Let us meet then in the lounging corridor 
of the Tower. I'll provide you with a pass. 

Frances. Oh, they are kind enough to let 
me lodge in the Tower. 

Richard. I'll go to make smooth the way — 
to secure the keys I'll need, and — to ^ake my reck- 
onings. [Turns, staggers, as he goes. Collides 
with door. Places both hands to his forehead."] 

Frances. Oh, how much better pleased Fd 
be if, instead of the meek writing of a letter, it 

29 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



were my part to be where danger riots, where 
swords are most gluttonous, where musketry bel- 
lows its loud agency for silent death. Or, if I 
missed the comfort of the battle's carnage, I'd be 
content to gather up its widows in some vast place, 
so that in the united volume of their raw griefs my 
own might be out-dinn'd. [Falls to her knees, sob- 
bing,'] Oh, no, no, all I want is God's mercy and 
forgiveness. 



30 



ACT TWO 



ACT II 

[Scene I: The lounging corridor in the 
Tower. At the back, centre, is a double door, 
locked, and heavily barred and bolted. It is night, 
and the place is lighted by lanterns. 

Enter Monk and Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 
conversing in undertones.'] 

Monk. I'll breathe easier when they are out 
of the way. 

Sir Anthony. Don't be uneasy. Slingsby 
will never betray us. 

Monk. His wife has been making desperate 
efforts to save him. She will weep him Into trad- 
ing us off, If she can; and under that kind of pres- 
sure a strong man Is as feeble as a weak one. 
There's danger from Hewit, too. I cannot be- 
lieve he had no Inkling we were helping. 

Sir Anthony. Nobody but Slingsby knows 
that. His wife thinks the favors we extend her 
are out of love and softness for an old comrade. 
We have left no footprints, Monk. 

Monk. I hope not; but did you notice how 
constrained the Protector became when I entered 
the Council Chamber? 

Sir Anthony. No, I noticed nothing, except 
that you were a trifle too profuse in congratula- 

33 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



tions over the safety of his precious person, due to 
the approaching extinction of our unfortunate al- 
lies. 

Monk. I thought to make up for your very 
noticeable indifference to it. You are too out- 
spoken against the Kingship, Sir Anthony. 

Sir Anthony. There are some causes vital 
enough to be battled for in the open, and plotted 
for in the dark. I used Slingsby, underground, — 
for an end, and for that same end I'd preach re- 
bellion from the housetops. 

Monk. Your ambition is too much alloyed 
with patriotism. It is galling for Oliver to give the 
lie to all his past by seizing the Kingship, but that 
is nothing to hang a martrydom on. What else 
matters, if we come into my Dukedom and your 
Earldom? 

Sir Anthony. I do not hate myself while I 
am loving my country. The Earldom Prince 
Charles promised me has added some fuel to the 
flames of my enthusiasm for his cause. [Tapping 
Monk on shoulder with knozving air.'] Oliver 
himself was ready to treat a Stuart like a human 
being after Charles offered to become his son-in- 
law. And when Nature snaps the tension she has 
put Oliver under, a Dukedom for the easy-going 
Richard may serve to hothouse our Stuart hopes 
into harvest. 

Monk. Eh, we wooers of the goddess Suc- 
34 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



cess are not jealous I weUl hire out her favors, 
wherever it may clear our path. 

[Enter Lackey.} 

Lackey. General Lambert wishes to see you 
at the office, Sir Anthony. 

Sir Anthony. Very well. [To Monk.] 
Let us be back when the officers begin drifting in 
after supper, and set ourselves to unshaping the 
moulding of false opinion among them. 

Monk. You are beginning to let your feel- 
ings break through your policy, Sir Anthony. I'll 
make sure to come, to duenna your boldness. 
[Exit Sir Anthony.] One last kind act for poor 
Slingsby. [Drawing letter from his pocket.] If 
I had told Sir Anthony of this farewell letter, he 
would have fought against my curiosity, and this 
slight inspection. [Carefully opens letter.] Ha; 
An escape! As I feared. [Reads.] 

*'Henry: A powerful hand is aiding us. 
Be ready to flee at midnight. Frances." 
Slingsby carries too weighty a secret. He will 
learn, in time, that I insured against disaster, and 
made myself secure with the Protector — ^by a few 
accidental discoveries; and if I accidentally dis- 
cover this letter to the Protector, that door will be 
closed forever. Forgive me, Slingsby, I would not 
injure you, but upon compulsion. I am steered, as 
far as any man, by generosity and brotherly love 
—within their natural limits. Your power for 

35 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



good Is gone ; you were a failure as a leader — too 
open, too honest, too disdainful of artifice, too 
mindful of right and wrong, too prone to extend 
justice to an enemy ; but, with all your faults, you 
were a lovable, most useful fellow. Ah, I do not 
relish losing you. [Carefully re-reads letter ^ and 
replaces it in his pocket.'] 

[Enter Frances.] 

[Aside, with an expression of consternation.] 

Mrs. Slingsby! [She approaches hurriedly. 
He takes her hands cordially and compassion- 
ately.]. Poor Henry! Poor Henry! 

Frances. Oh, did you, did you — give him 
my letter. 

Monk. Yes; and if there Is anything else I 
can do — 

Frances. Oh, General Monk, you have been 
so kind, so good. 

Monk. What little IVe done has been such 
a pleasure, such a pleasure. Ah, my duties call me 
away. You will excuse me, dear Mrs. Slingsby. 
[Exit Monk.] 

Frances. 'Twas so short, so fleeting; — as 
if the fates had set an hour's happiness in a trap 
for our poor hearts ; yet, for another such hour Fd 
exchange a thousand years in perdition ! O, O, the 
day Is over ; Fll wrap myself in the blackness of the 
night,— and there'll be no to-morrow, no rendering 
in deeds the soul's crystal gloamings, no phcenlx- 

36 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



winging from the ashes of dead illusions I Every 
choice and royal gift was mine; — I'm no glutton I 
I'll accept starvation of the heart as the balance 
due on my account — I'll make friends with evil! 
Wrong, thou Goliath of the strong, I'll stock an 
arsenal with thy weapons I Fraud, thou friend of 
the weak, I'll have no other counsellor than thee I 
Not a tear, not one, not one ; I'll not weep for my- 
self, dear one ; that I'll leave to thee. [Exit. ] 

[Enter Whaley and Ingoldshy, They pro- 
ceed to lounge^ and make themselves com^ 
fortable. Whaley begins polishing his 
sword. He hums, and then sings. During 
his song, Monk, and Lenthall stroll in.'\ 
Whaley. 

"She is a garden fair, 
Whence Fairies banish care; 
She is a cupid snare. 
But her heart is right. 

"She can be all disdain. 
Her frown gives deadly pain, 
Her's is a tyrant's reign. 
But her heart is right.'* 

Ingoldby. That's an old-timer you are sing- 
ing. 

Whaley. Yes, Prince Rupert used to sing it 
when he was so badly smitten on the gay Evelina 
Hughes. The last time he sang it was to me. We 

37 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



were walking home on one of those balmy June 
mornings, when souls bubble over into each other, 
after a night of cheer at the tavern. As he ended 
his warbling, I said, *'0h, yes, her heart is right, — 
to about a dozen of you." He said: ^'Villain, you 
asperse the quintessence of goodness, the queen of 
beauty, the panacea for evil and gloom. Fairest of 
the fair, she is sweeter than she is fair; loveliest of 
all, she is truer than she is lovely. Oh," said he, 
"if Dante and Petrarch had seen my Evelina, and 
had not had their inspiration clogged by a dull 
Beatrice, and an ordinary Laura 1" "Oh," said I, 
"if Dante had seen his Beatrice walking in the lilac 
lane at Windsor Castle, with her head on young 
Bradshaw's shoulder, or sitting with cross-ey'd 
Fairfax under the oaks at Hampton Court, after 
dusk, encircled by his industrious arm, as I 
have" — He looked at me pitifully, and said, "You 
give me a mortal blow, Whaley." I said, "Banish 
the jade from your thoughts. Prince." He turned 
away, helplessly, and said, "Ask Bradshaw and 
Fairfax to do that." 

[Enter Sir Anthony ^ L.] 

Sir Anthony [aside]. Lambert behind the 
bars I What next? What next? John Milton in 
the stocks, I suppose, and Jeremy Taylor in the 
ducking-stool I There's Lenthall, turned pander 
to Oliver's ambition. [Approaches Lenthall, who 
is standing in a group, and places a hand on his 

38 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



shoulder. 2 This is not my staunch, roundhead 
soldier friend Lenthall ; it is the ghost of some cav- 
alier hero of idle days and riotous nights drawn by 
the familiar, alluring glitter of a crown, to come 
back, and haunt the ancient Paradise we drove him 
from ? 

Monk. Ha! Ha! What a jolly wag Sir 
Anthony is I 

Sir Anthony [sourly]. A wag? 

Monk. Hal Ha! Here he is poking fun 
at Lenthall. 

Sir Anthony. Poking fun? [Fiercely.] 

Monk. For turning royalist, while he 
preaches to me that all the Kings England has 
had, if moulded into one, would stand pygmy-like 
in fitness and deserving, alongside of Oliver. 

Sir Anthony. I ? Preaching Oliver's great- 
ness? 

Monk \_edging hifnself m front of Sir An- 
thony], If the bloody husbandry of war yields a 
harvest, who should reap it but those whose 
swords were the ploughshares? 

Lenthall. Is Cromwell reaping when he 
begins to reign, or is England itself sowing? 

Ingoldsby. Good Sirs, let us not debate the 
shadow before the substance exists. Who can say 
the Protector will accept the crown? 

Sir Anthony. Accept it? Humph! The 
lion is noted for chasing his prey to exhaustion, and 

39 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



slaughtering it, and then turning away, hungry, 
[Turning to Whaley and In^oldsby, who have 
been conversing apart.'] Ah, Whaley and In- 
goldsby can tell us what has been decided on. They 
are authentic. They may even be the storks who 
are about to lay King Oliver I on the nation's door- 
step. 

Whaley. Storks have wings ; and wings add 
swiftness to flight; so, my dear Sir Anthony, for 
the sake of your military career let me not usurp 
the office of stork. 'Twill prove useful to you in 
your next battle. 

Monk [acting as a buffer between Whaley 
and Sir Anthony]. Why waste so much thought 
on the Kingship ? Whether as King or Protector, 
we have a leader we love and trust — who possesses 
every great quality, and no petty one. 

Whaley. Sound, as usual. Monk. 

Sir Anthony. Can you bring yourself to 
raise the House of Cromwell as another barrier to 
the equality of man; to blister your throat with 
"God save King Oliver;" to kneel before that con- 
veniency to sit upon which is called a throne ; to ac- 
cept the caprices of weak flesh and blood as divine 
laws ; to condemn genius and beauty to be the cen- 
sers for swinging before royalty and its satellites 
the adulation the gods on Olympus have lost? 

Ingoldsby. As long as a King can be useful, 
I am willing to give him his empty distinctions. 

40 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



When he goes to making others useful to him, 
chop his head off. 

Sir Anthony. If for the cropped ears and 
sHt nose of every Prynne the head of a Charles 
should fall, your programme would be beautiful. 

Whaley. Oliver takes up tne Kingship as 
the Great Mace before which disorder's din is 
hushed, and its torch extinguished. 

Sir Anthony. What usurpation ever lacked 
that pretext ? So many roaring destroyers of mon- 
archy roar no more since Oliver began itching for 
the crown. 

Whaley. I'm an echo, ha ? 

Sir Anthony. Oh, not at all ; an echo is in- 
evitable: you are silent until your original gives 
you leave. 

Monk. Anything can be smoothed over be- 
tween friends. Whaley, you know that if Sir An- 
thony errs, it is from exaggerating our cause ; Sir 
Anthony, you know that if Whaley errs, it is from 
exaggerating our leader. 

Whaley. I know that if Sir Anthony were 
a champion of Truth, he would most certainly ex- 
aggerate his cause. 

Sir Anthony. Is this the studied insolence 
sent ahead by usurpation to clear the way for it, or 
is it the effervescence of a coffee-house bully, gone 
unduly long without the drubbings that enwisdom 
him in picking safe targets for his hectoring? 

41 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Monk. Dissension! Heart-burning I When 
the happy slaughtering to-morrow of those hang- 
dog, desperado designers of our ruin is about to 
give us so much to rejoice over ! 

Whaley. Have I stemmed the rush of Ru- 
pert's cavalry to be run over by a fetlock, a spavin, 
a fistula? 

Sir Anthony. Did Winchester and Naseby 
hiss and seethe around me, and leave me un- 
harmed, to be spitted on the gibes of an empty, 
frothing clout? [They fight. Musketeers and 
pikemen come rushing in. The majority join 
against Whaley. Monk, after feebly endeavoring 
to play peacemaker, makes a discreet exit.^ 

[Enter Richard.] 

Richard. Strange, I do not flee. Whose 
courage have I stolen? Before it evaporates I'll 
lend a hand, — to the weaker side. [Draws his 
szvord, and engages. Disables a musketeer.] 
That was not a scoundrel's thrust. [Strikes down 
a pikeman.] That was not a milksop's blow. 
[Rushes upon the struggling mass, and breaks up 
the fight. The combatants retire, in semi-flight. 
The fallen arise unsteadily and hobble of. 
Richard wipes his sword, and replaces it in the 
scabbard.] W^hat a delicacy for wounded and 
convalescent honor a kiUIng is! [Some of the 
lanterns go out. It is nearly midnight. The place 
is in semi-darkness.] Quiet and solid as are 

42 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



these walls, Fm far out on a stormier sea 
than any the wakeful mother gazes upon through 
the night, praying for her storm-tossed sailor 
son. The ocean foam by which I'm lashed 
is made up of the sanctities I once lived in ! The 
wreckage dashing by is not from my foundered 
ship ; it is the splintered habitation of my soul I O, 
Tve clung to driftwood, and cheated the depths of 
the prey that was almost their's ! I'll send her with 
him, with this letter saying that what I promised 
I've carried out, but that which she promised is re- 
leased and cancelled. O, what is it that sweeps us 
on to dishonor, hating it, and despising ourselves 
as its dishrag troop? Can it be the same power 
that shapes conquest from the dust of surrender, 
that crushes wrong in the egg, by purifying the in- 
tention ; that disannuls wrong in its hardened age, 
by accepting its repentance ? 

[Enter Frances.^ 

Frances. Is all in readiness? 

Richard. All, except— 

Frances. Let us lose no time. 

[Richard unbolts the door. He produces the 
key, unlocks the door, and swings it open, 
disclosing, in the distance, a row of cells. 1 

Frances [rushes to the door]. O, where 
is he? 

Richard. Strange he is not ready 1 

Frances. Are we too early? 

43 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Richard. He Is not even on the look-out I 

Frances [calling softly']. Henry I 

Voice from Cell. O, do not torment me, 
sweet face. 

Frances [calling a^ain'}, Henry! 

Voice FROM Cell. Satan, thou art borrow- 
ing her voice to break my peace with God. 

Frances. Henry! It Is I, Frances. You 
are safe ; you are safe ! 

\_Richard unlocks the door of Sling shy* s cell, 
and throws it open.] 

[Enter Oliver, with pikemen and musketeers, 
in charge of a Lieutenant.] 

[One of the pikemen, with a torch, throws 
light into the interior of cell, showing Sir 
Henry Slingsby on his knees, with bowed 
head, in an attitude of prayer.] 

Oliver. A little jail-robbing party, eh? Fm 
not intruding ? Fm slightly interested in the throat 
that fellow wants another whack at; and Fve come 
to protest against his getting it. [Soldiers enter 
SUngshy's cell, and seize him. Oliver points to 
Slingsby.] He won't need watching long, Lieuten- 
ant. Don't let him get out of sight until the rope 
is on him. [Frances sobs.] This, I see, is the 
sorrowing widow; and this, — why — who — not 
Richard, my son? 

Richard. It is I, Richard. Let me tell you 
why — 

44 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Oliver. Away — 

Richard. Father — 

Oliver. Not a word. You will not be 
trusted again. The keys! [Richard hands keys 
to Oliver, who takes them and points to the en- 
trance.'] Go I [Exit Richard.] 

[At a sign from Oliver^ the Lieutenant takes 
the keys and closes the door of Sling shy's cell, and 
locks it.] 

Oliver [to two of the musketeers]. Remain 
here on guard. [The musketeers station them- 
selves at the door of Sling shy's cell. The Lieuten- 
ant closes, holts, and locks the main door.] Lieu- 
tenant, take charge of this lady. Take your men 
with you. [Exeunt all hut Oliver and the guard.] 

What is it that blots out this picture of vil- 
lainy? I see him now as he was thirty years ago, 
— rosy, dimpled and tender, tumbling about my 
knees in play, and coming with tired feet and 
drowsy eyes, to nestle in my arms to sleep. This 
is the harvest. Then, if I had sown with unkind- 
ness and injustice, he w^ould have blossomed with 
virtues. Oh, Richard, if this had been impatient 
ambition in thee, I'd have said, *'Thou hast but a 
little while to wait," or, if tough nature bore me 
up too long, rd have asked thee to let me exchange 
my state for a hermit's cave, where, with horse- 
hair for my garments, and charitable offal for my 
food, I might have rejoiced at thy greatness. I did 

45 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



not train thee up as I should, my son. Was it not 
my peremptory office to know when thou beganst 
drifting among the lost and perjured, and to come, 
if need be, from the ends of the earth, to fetch 
thee back to thy duty ? I did not watch over thee. 
The pall of thy guilt settles widely, and covers 
both of us. I did not guard thee. I did hold out 
to thee that there is a way to arm the spirit for 
mastery of the universe, and to bathe it in the king- 
liness which atmospheres the pathway up to God 
— all to no avail ; to no avail, because, I see, I did 
not have what I sought to impart. I let slip my op- 
portunities to put my arm about thee, and by an 
ebb and flow of thought between us, train thy na- 
ture to visit that dreaded realm, which pain and 
trial and sorrow are the ushers to, and where now 
and then they strike from the ultimate the flash 
which reveals the futility of wrong — ^where now 
and then they lift from the everlasting an edge of 
its veil, so that by its radiance the false and trivial 
is expelled and hidden away, as the stars are at 
midday. [With his head sunk low, and showing 
great feebleness, he makes his exit,^ 

[Scene II: A room in Whitehall. At night. 

Outside it is storming. Enter Whaley and 

Monk.'\ 
Whaley. Monk, if you need to be put in a 
good humor, let me recommend that you go down, 
and be smiled upon bv His Eminence. 

" 46 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Monk. His Eminence? 

Whaley. Why, yes, — Slingsby ; he aimed at 
eminence by getting Old Noll's head on his pike, 
and he has arrived at it by getting his head on Old 
Noll's pike. Ha! Ha! 

Monk. His Eminence I Ha ! Ha ! VWgo 
down and do obeisance, until I'm worked up into 
enough reverence to drop in at the tavern and toss 
off a toast to the quick translation of His Eminence 
into crow-bait. 

Whaley. I'm not enjoying this hanging as I 
should. Monk; I'm worried about the Protector. 
No one knows what happened last night, but the 
Protector has had some kind of a shock. More 
revelations in the Slingsby case, I dare say. 

Monk. More revelations? Have you any 
idea — 

Whaley. Slingsby confessed, I'm sure. 

Monk. Confessed? No, no ; fortitude does 
not confess ; determination does not surrender. 

Whaley. Nothing else could have shaken 
the Protector so. Depend upon it, Slingsby made 
a bid for his life by telling the whole story. We'll 
have another batch of conspirators in the Tower 
by night. 

Monk. That would be — splendid; but — if 
Slingsby did confess, what would it amount to? 
Who would believe the lies of a cut-throat, in- 



47 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



vented for no other purpose than to sow suspicion 
in the Protector's circle? 

Whaley. a hint would be enough. To 
frown accusingly at guilt will send its knocking 
knees zigzagging into the jaws of discovery. Ha ! 
Ha I Monk, if the crop of conspirators should 
fail, how'd we keep our rookeries fat? 

Monk [off guard']. Don't speak of discov- 
ery. I hear the ravens croaking now. 

Whaley. Can there be a more agreeable 
sound? 

Monk [recovering himself], O, Whaley? 
Whaley, I cannot bear to see the Protector's noble 
heart wrung with fresh treacheries. He has be- 
come an old man under the strain of the last few 
weeks. If his health should fail, if his precious life 
should be snuffed out, our cause would go like a 
candle in a storm. 

Whaley. Here comes the Protector now. 
How changed he is I 

[Enter Oliver,'] 

Oliver. Gentlemen, I give you welcome, — 
as heartily — as a man without heart can. [ Takes 
their hands.] 

Whaley [bringing forward a chair, which 
Monk, bustling officiously, helps Oliver into]. 
Sorry you are not well, Your Highness. 

Monk. So am I, Your Highness; but what 
grieves me more is that nature has set her barriers 

48 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



to friendship, so that a life like mine cannot be 
pieced on to one like yours, to shorten days which 
are insignificant, and to make double the length of 
days which are glorious. 

Oliver. I thank thee, Monk. There is com- 
fort in the clasp of thy honest hand, and in the 
glance of thy fiduciary eye ; and my need for it is 
great. I have uncovered the falsity of one so dear 
to me that grief has beset me with her pack of curs, 
tongu'ing forth in full cry that there are no true 
hearts left, and that what is good and virtuous is 
lingering yet a few feeble days, only to be fed upon 
by the all-conquering gluttony of evil. 

[Enter Desborough.'] 

Desborough. Sirs, you are very placid here, 
as veterans, who are the ashes of strife, ought to 
be. To be unruffled in the midst of alarms is a 
badge of greatness, and I am not afraid of disturb- 
ing you with the news that Cuny's writ against the 
taxes we need to fill our empty Treasury has been 
granted. 

Oliver [vacantly], Cuny. [Mtisingty.] 
Who is he? [Recollecting.'} Cuny! [Starting 
up, with an effort,} Has that fester won his writ? 
It could only have been before a judge to whom a 
well-arguM quibble looks like a lever long enough 
to move the earth. It makes no difference — ^what 
money we need we'll have, writ or no writ. Sore- 
heads may rush to court, and muttonheads may de- 

49 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



cree them the land and sea and sky, but when my 
men are hungry, they'll eat. If the feeble current 
of the sluggish Thames can be neither hurried nor 
slowed by the wisest mandate that ever greatness 
stamped its seal on, think ye that what villainy 
argues and folly adjudges shall stand as more than 
a bulrush in the way of my purpose? I forget — 
\_Sinks back into his chair. 1 I am too ready to fly 
to arms at the sight of mischief. I'll bring myself 
to submit; to return thanks for insult; to shed tears 
at outrage. If one I had defeated came strutting 
across the field where his followers lay weltering, 
and summoned me to surrender, I'd do it meekly. 
O, for the rich and varied jewels of opportunity, 
that I might shovel them into the roadway and 
pave it, for me to pass over, with hob-nailed shoes, 
to a chimney-corner, and a pensioner's pipe. [Col- 
lapses.'} 

Desborough. What is it. Your Highness? 

Oliver. I am not quite myself, Desborough. 

Monk. O, you are ill ; let us have a physician. 

Oliver. It is nothing, — except that so much 
is becoming immaterial to me, so much is slipping 
away. I can't go on much longer, Monk, with that 
fierce strife in the dark, where I have grappled 
with friends and fraternized with foes. As I look 
back, so many of the blows I've struck for the 
right come to me with bastard consequence of hav- 

50 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



ing taken from A for the benefit of B. How leader- 
ship shrinks into a feeble shadow, shorn of its de- 
lusion, for the right-seeker, that it enables him to 
give to others, and for the self-seeker, that it en- 
ables him to take from others ! 

Monk. We must do something, gentlemen. 
A timely simple may check that which in its matur- 
ity the strength of battalions would be powerless 
against. 

Oliver. No remedies; the time for me to 
have provided against the wolf-snarl of this mo- 
ment was ten years ago, when I might have gone 
back to my hillsides and my sheep, away from the 
treadmill, where trifles lord it over us, and counter- 
feit, to our narrow, magnifying gaze, the up-shoul- 
dering office of Atlas. Desborough, let it be an- 
nounced that I have decided not to be King. Oh 
quiet fields I Oh shady lanes, take me back I Take 
me back! 

[Enter Lenthall, Fleetwood and Sir Anthony.'] 

Lenthall. The unexpected has happened. 
Your Highness. Slingsby's widow has broken 
down, and is ready to confess. She'll tell every- 
thing, but only to you. Shall I bring her in? 

Oliver. No more tales of villainy, Lenthall. 
Two of the guilty have suffered, and we'll treat 
them as proxy for others. 

Lenthall. But, Your Highness — 

SI 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Oliver. I won't see the hyena, Lenthall. 
Cage her up In the Tower. I won't pry into the 
wretched details. 

Lenthall [in a low voice'}. Suppose she ex- 
onerates Richard. 

Oliver. Exonerates him? How could she? 
Yet — I'll see her. [Exit Lenthall.] 

If this woman should prove that it was all, as 
to him, a harlequinade — that he, in no way con- 
senting, was only spattered over with the guilt of 
others, I'd hail her as a divinity — I'd give her a 
triumphal car, and walk behind it in chains. Oh, 
oh, how weak, how doddering I am I O, for the 
Roman firmness that would have sent them both 
to the lion, or to the Tarpeian rock! 

Monk [Advancing!]. You are unnerving 
yourself, Your Highness, to our hurt, and yours. 
Won't you rest on this lounge? 

Oliver [putting his arm around Monk!s neck, 
steadying! himself on way from his chair to lounge 
at left of stage.] When I am given rest, it will 
grieve a few faithful hearts like thine, George. 
[He reclines, brokenly, on lounge, and is sur- 
rounded by his officers. The storm grows more 
violent.] 

[Enter Frances and Lenthall, from the right.] 

Lenthall [To Frances]. The Protector is 
worse. I will rally him. [Goes to the Protector.] 

5^ 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Frances [aside]. My heart needs balm, 
too ; and It may be had by bruising his. Ha ! I 
may be doing them a good turn, for what does the 
love between villains thrive upon but suspicion and 
treason? [Laughing.'] To-morrow, when I have 
venom'd up their thoughts, they'll be more affec- 
tionate and honey'd in their endearments than be- 
fore. [Oliver waves his officers to the rear. Monk 
remains, supporting him, Lenthall leads Frances 
to the lounge. Oliver waves Lenthall back.] 

Oliver. What price do you want for your 
confession ? 

Frances. None. My husband is gone, and 
I want everything known. 

Oliver. An example has been made. I do 
not want a long list of confederates. 

Frances. There is no list — 

Oliver. Then my son was there — ^by acci- 
dent? 

Frances. No ; not by accident — 

Oliver. Was he there out of some — notion 
of chivalry for your distress ? 

Frances. No ; not that. Did you not know 
he leaned to the royalists ? 

Oliver. I knew he was not in sympathy — 
Ah, Ah! 

Frances. You would not suppose he was in 
league with us? 

S3 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Oliver. O God, if I had not seen him there, 
thou mightest have rang'd thy stars into letters of 
warning, in vain. Why didst thou not blast mine 
eyeballs from their sockets before they showed 
him to me in that iniquitous company? [To 
Frances.'] No, I'll not believe it. 

Frances. I am here. Sir, to tell you the 
truth, whether you are pleased with it or not. 

Oliver. What is it? What is it? 

Frances. The Stuarts knew that you and he 
were out of accord; and, owing to the — interest he 
took in me, I was selected to win him over. He 
was already convinced of the futility of your 
methods — 

Oliver. True, true. 

Frances. I soon persuaded him that unless 
he joined us, the inevitable restoration of the royal 
line would be attended by a massacre of all your 
family. I guaranteed your personal safety, in the 
event you were deposed with Richard's aid, and 
also — ahem-— a peerage for Richard. Upon these 
conditions he took part with us, never suspecting 
that our real object — 

Oliver. For a coronet I For a coronet! 

Frances. Was to exterminate — 

Oliver. Duped ! Duped I O, wolf, fettered 
in a sheep's impotency. 

Frances [aside]. Tears! Ha! Ha! 
54 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Oliver. O, the long vista of pretense, of af- 
fected warmth, of shallow and unmeant devotion 
that I look back upon I 

Frances [seeing him pause from weakness. 
Aside"]. Ah, better than tears! 

Oliver. O Grave, is it I, sighing like help- 
less innocence, betrayed, for that vista wherein 
falsity is barred out by thy steadfast violet and thy 
sentinel wild-flower? Is it Oliver Cromwell, re- 
joicing to be sheltered from discord by the dulcet 
whisperings of thy tall grasses, and the nightingale 
singings from thy shading vines ? [Oliver is over- 
come. The officers crowd anxiously around.] 

Frances [aside]. Oh, why may not those 
acid tears bring back my dead ? Oh, clumsy, waste- 
ful, and futile nature, to spend thyself on cunning 
devices for worthless, redundant life, and to have 
no process for waking the god-like dead ! If the 
tints and graces of the flower are wrapped in the 
rough weed's seed, — if the throat of the new 
hatched lark is lined with amber and with gold, why 
may not the potency of the harping of Orpheus be 
infused into these murderers' tears, that I might 
bathe my martyred one in an ocean of them, and 
bring him back again? 

[Enter Richard.] 

[Richard rushes to the side of Oliver's couch, 
and kneels.] 

SS 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Oliver [rising, with his hand pressed wildly 
to his heart]. That dagger was so sharp. It 
was not — Richard's? 

Richard. Oh, it was, it was — 

Oliver. No, no, 'twas not thine, my son. 
[Dies. Frances, seeing that Oliver is dead, makes 
a gesture of triumph. There is a burst of light' 
ning and thunder. '\ 



S6 



ACT THREE 



ACT III 

[Scene I : The terraced garden at Windsor 
Castle. 

Richard Cromwell^ discovered, in the garb of 
Lord Protector. His mantle is of purple 
velvet, lined with ermine. He wears a 
sword.^ 

Richard. Oh, this sapping and mining joy 
of having ! Thou comest to me, Sceptre, borne on 
curses, and gendering them ; — yet, I'm to turn thee 
to use and profit ! To profit ? Because of the way 
thou hast come to me, I'll subject thy being to this 
law : that there shall be no use and profit in thee ex- 
cept for those over whom thou are wielded. I'll 
be thy Voice, if God wills it, saying to the enslaved 
of England: 

"I know that some must be hewers of wood, 
and drawers of water — that some must walk 
from the cradle to the grave, yoked with oxen, 
and fettered to the soil, yet there is something 
which thy neighbor may do, and ought to do, 
for thee; and I,— representing all those jour- 
neying with thee across this narrow isthmus, 
— I have a strength which I have absorbed 
from every source of power, as the bee sips 
honey from daffodil and from clover, from 
59 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



daisy and from jessamine— a strength whose 
store has been added to by hands now still 
and by minds now glorified — a strength out 
of which I will distribute unto thee a portion, 
to reinforce thy weakness, and to ease thy 
harness, so that it shall cease to gall thy neck, 
and to deaden, and make callous thy soul." 
[Enter LenthalW] 
Ah, Lenthall, my father's friend. 
Lenthall. I marched a long time at his 
side. Your Highness. 

Richard. You have been staunch and true, 
Lenthall. 

Lenthall. I watched all night through the 
storm that came to chariot him away ; and it buoyed 
me up to fancy that his spirit was soaring, un- 
cramped for the first time, in the flying clouds ; and 
that his voice came to me, bidding me to be of good 
cheer, and to fret not against Heaven's larceny in 
stealing away our comrades for a space. 

Richard. He forgave me at the last, Lent- 
hall. I shall have no other ambition than to be 
worthy of that forgiveness, and, first, I banish 
from my thoughts that apparition of loveliness, 
whose smiles, in the midst of magnanimous pur- 
poses, are robbery, and whose tears are murder. 
[Enter Ingoldshy^ L, and Whaley, R,] 
Ingoldsby. Your Highness, the city is in a 
tumult: it is rumored everywhere that the men 

60 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



closest to you in the army are betraying you. And 
the royalists and republicans are as busy as bees, 
and almost as thick. 

Whaley. Oh, as to the royalists and the re- 
publicans, we can crush them like an eggshell. 

Richard. They were crushed once. If it 
must be done again, the first crushing was to no 
purpose. Why keep it up ? "How shall I allay op- 
position?" "How shall I secure my throne?" are 
the problems which have too much made up the 
horizon of the rulers of the world. The problem 
filling all my horizon shall be, "How to add to 
England's firmament this Star — 'No more coining 
of men's groans and tears into Greatness.' " 

Ingoldsby. a very pretty sentiment. Your 
Highness, but of much more efficacy as the active 
principle of a society of Good Samaritans than of 
a State. 

Richard. Let us also bid the Good Samari- 
tan adieu. His endeavors demoralize the general 
obligation. There is no way of organizing all men 
together except through the State, and what all 
men together ought to do for one man is what the 
State must do for that man. Is that function to re- 
main in a vague and optional desuetude forever? 
Is it never to be builded into workaday act, and ar- 
ticulate law, so that the superfluities in the accounts 
of some men shall be balanced against the deficien- 
cies in the accounts of other men ? I thank the sad- 

6i 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



ness and bitterness I've come through for a wider 
vision. O thou sorrowing heart, wrung by my 
transgressions, Vl\ build thee a monument out of 
the gladness and rejoicings of an always increas- 
ing throng ! 

[Enter Fleetwood.'] 

Lenthall. Ah, Your Highness, but there is 
immediate danger, as Ingoldsby says. 

Fleetwood. Danger I 

Richard. A few royalists, and disaffected 
republicans, Fleetwood. 

Lenthall. No, from our supposed friends, 
in the army itself. 

Fleetwood. As one of the Generals, I ought 
to know what is going on in the army. Some 
alarmist has been practicing upon you. 

Lenthall. There have been no secret coun- 
cils of the officers? 

Fleetwood. Well — Is there any harm in 
one officer visiting another? 

Lenthall. Oh, military chieftains do love to 
get together with their knitting and their darning- 
needles ! 

Fleetwood. Your Parliamentary hair is on 
end from listening to nursery tales of the way we 
soldiers dull our swords carving up good little 
children at our banquets ! 

Lenthall. Playfulness in violence, sport- 
iveness in treason, seriousness in carnality — that's 

62 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



government by those whose trade it is to butcher 
men I 

Fleetwood. Ah, what you like is the cackling 
of the fussy old maids who call themselves Parlia- 
ment! 

Lenthall. An army cannot govern — 

Fleetwood. A Parliament cannot fight bat- 
tles! 

Richard. Sirs, yourdebatings are as weighty 
and earnest as if you were prescribing for the pub- 
lic heartache. 

Lenthall. Ah, but this concerns your own 
stability. 

Richard. If stability comes to me, it shall be 
as an incident to my accomplishment and dutiful- 
ness. Let us not debate who shall be the dominant 
power of the State. Let us not emptily, insig- 
nificantly, dishonorably ask, "Who is to direct?" 
when the question of questions — the highest which 
God permits man to answer — "How shall we di- 
rect, for the largest benefit?" remains unanswered. 
[Richard indicates by a sign that the conference is 
at an end."] 

[Enter Frances, L.] 

[While Frances is speaking, all, except Rich- 
ard, make their exits: Ingoldshy, JVhaley, 
. and Lenthall shaking their heads, gesticulat- 
ing and murmuring ; Fleetwood shrugging 
his shoulders and smiling.'] 

63 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Frances, [aside]. He has good reasons for 
holding aloof, if he knew, but he does not know: 
Monk has been discretion and fidelity itself. I 
cannot fathom it: Is it because I'm broken and 
faded? Has my face grown peaked; my frame 
bony; my steps tottering, — for the trifling reason 
that my heart is ashes ? Do not traitor me now, ye 
once opulent qualities : tarry with me but for a day, 
an hour, until I fan his sluggish fondness into a 
flame, and direct it, as from a raging blow-pipe, 
against the steely props of the House of Cromwell. 
Most lovingly will I roam with him to fancy's 
verges, and dally with him along the hawthorn 
lanes, — to where the pitfalls are. 

[Frances approaches Richard^ who, not seeing 
her, is saying, as though in summing up a 
train of thought S\ 

Richard. How deadly to high aspiration 
this dreaming of happiness is! 

Frances [with an exaggerated howl. My 
allegiance. Your Highness. Alas! that I should 
doubt its welcome. 

Richard. It was for me to doubt whether I 
stood acquitted by you. 

Frances. Oh, if you think there are mutual 
offenses, let them shrive one another. And now, 
what of the future — our future? 

Richard. The future of so many is in my 
charge that it forbids any thought of my own. 

64 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Frances. Oh, is to do good so grim a thing 
that one is fit for it only when he scourges himself, 
and those dear to him? 

Richard. Ah, if I let myself think of you, I 
would not be safe — I would not trust myself — 

Frances. Ha ! Not trust yourself with me ? 
Plain, old-fashion' d, stupid, dowdy me? Ha! 
Ha ! O, Richard, what fancies possess you. Ha ! 
*Tis due to these rhinocerous horns. Yet I slay 
more men with these bloody tiger's claws, and 
these sharp unicorn hoofs [showing her feet and 
ankles'], which, see, are cloven. O, I'm famish'd, 
for my hippopotamus jaws give warning and speed 
to my prey, and it escapes. You do not flee ; you 
are brave. 

Richard. A circle of monsters from the jun- 
gle could not terrify me more; only, they would 
not intoxicate too — 

Frances. Stop, Puritan, not a word deroga- 
tory to intoxication, which in your humdrum expe- 
rience consists of becloudment, soddenness, the un- 
chaining of rage, and the stifling of virtue. The 
intoxication whereof I know beguiles Mother Time 
back to sportive youthfulness, and strings chaplets 
of pearls to hide the wrinklings of her neck; it is 
caught from the smile of the alchemist, Hope, as 
with unwearied arm he digs into the gaunt ribs of 
the gray mountains of Doubt and Despair, for the 
ores out of which he conjures happiness; it exag- 

6s 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



gerates the hues of morning, and lends them to the 
dusk of evening; it quaffs, with less effect than a 
sleeping-potion, the bitter hemlock of the annihilat- 
ing philosophies ; it weeps — the sages who hold it 
ceases to exist, if it weeps, are wrong — it weeps 
over genius, with soaring pinions broken, and over 
mediocrity, fevered with presumptuous ambition, 
fluttering its rudimentary wings in vain. 

Richard. The intoxication whereof I know 
strikes oft the fetters of fear and conscience, and 
sends forth the unshackled earthling to vibrate un- 
der the play of elemental forces, and to help him- 
self, in nature's storehouse, as freely as Ali Baba 
did out of the piled-up treasures of the robber's 
cave. That intoxication is in the witches' wings, 
w^hich is thy humour; in the lovers' choirings o'er 
moonlit seas, which is thy voice ; in the provoking, 
elfish gleam, which is thine eye. It cancels the 
weight of responsibility and reproach ; it paints be- 
fore me an elysium — no, I'll follow the path of 
duty and of atonement — where thy finger points, 
thou watchful dead. 

Frances. Unless you are made of the putty 
of a Mark Antony — 

Richard. No, Frances; the purpose which 
drives me on is as a white-hot iron searing through 
the longings of my nature. I have now to redeem 
myself from weakness and guilt — to paint, on the 
imperishable canvas of history how one, stationed 

66 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



on high, to rule, buried all thoughts of himself In 
the deep bosom of a solicitude for the good of all. 
Some who rule after me may need the lesson. 

Frances. The despairing women who, after 
me, cry out to strength to come to the succor of 
weakness, will learn, in every-day lessons, that they 
are shrieking in the wilderness, if they have not 
caught the ear of ambition or passion — ^yet they 
will go on beseeching, trusting, and worshipping — 

Richard. O, it is not coldness — It is an all- 
embracing tenderness that leads me on, aloof from 
every quarrel, but one — for putting an end to 
subtle forms of serfdom ; for striking off the toil- 
ers' handicaps; for rescuing the backwoods boy 
from clods and the physical — 

[Enter Whaley.'] 

[He is nervously drawing his sword half-way 
from his scabbard, and snapping it hack.~\ 

Whaley. Treachery, treachery, every- 
where — 

Richard. That's nothing new, Whaley. 
Come I won't let you disturb Mrs. Slingsby with 
your croakings. [ To Frances.'] I had intended to 
give you this note that night at the Tower — in case 
we — succeeded. [Hands letter to Frances.'] 
Here, too, is a curio I found among my father's 
papers. Let me know what you think of it when 
I see you again. [Hands her torn envelope.] 

[Exeunt Richard and Whaley.] 

67 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Frances. Fresh from the archives of the 
Ogre. \_Throwing torn envelope to the ground.'} 
Lie there and let the uncontaminated earth suck 
away some of the pollution. [Opening Richard* s 
letter to her.] Why should I read it? O, there 
may be food for jesting in it. [Reads.] What's 
this? 

"Frances : The opiate of your presence re- 
moved, my honor is awake again, and on 
guard. You are to go to France with your 
husband. Forget me, and forgive me. By a 
curious circling of cause and effect, you, the 
offended, put in motion the offense ; and so, I 
pray you, let the tombstone-weight of your 
disfavor lie less heavily upon me. Farewell 
forever. "Richard." 

O, blind, Satanic, malice. O, what a plummet in 
the depths of hatred and deceit I was ! He begs 
forgiveness of me — of me, whom, if God is soft 
in His mercy, He will only rend with His light- 
nings I O, that great heart is pouring itself out for 
all about him, as it did for me, and I saw it, and 
scoffed and intrigued. O God, Thou hidest, 
deeper than the riches of Thy hills, the pure and 
the noble from sinful eyes. Here's this letter 
from Oliver's gentle custody. [Takes up letter 
from ground, and opens it.] Shall I discover in 
him, too, a generosity that offsets all his cruelties? 

68 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



[Reads, 1 My letter to Henry, that I gave to 
Monk ! What is this, at the bottom : 

^'Intercepted, Your Highness, as it was 
being smuggled to Sllngsby. If you are on 
hand at midnight, you may modify this plan. 

"George Monk/' 

Good and evil are In league to crush me. I am a 
joint target for their once opposite-swinging 
worlds. Ah! Ah! Eh! God's love and Hell's 
curses are kindling a flame about me, and I'm burn- 
ing! O, O, I'm burning! [She falls. She half 
rises.'] Ha ! I have a secret. I'll tell it to nobody 
but Henry, and — maybe- — Ha ! Ha ! — maybe — 
Richard. 

Scene II. The audience chamber at White- 
hall 

[Enter Lieutenant f with two pikemen.] 
Lieutenant [to the pikemen']. Guard this 
door. Admit no one without the countersign, 
"Runnymede." [Sentinels assume stations."] 

[Enter In^oldsby, with a troop of musketeers.] 
Ingoldsby [to the sentinels]. *'Runny- 
mede." [They salute.] [To his musketeers.] 
Halt. Ground arms. [Troops obey.] I'll sta- 
tion two of you at this entrance [indicating] . The 
countersign is "Runnymede." No one, high or 
low, is to enter without it. [The two new sen- 

69 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Hnels take their places at a door opposite the pike- 
men,'] Lieutenant, distribute sentinels through- 
out the palace, then proceed to headquarters for 
more troops. I'll meet you there. 

Lieutenant. Company, attention! Carry 
arms! Right-shoulder arms! Forward March! 
[Exit with troops.] 

Ingoldsby. It's a wee flurry, but it needs 
firm handling — two or three heads, and banish- 
ment for a dozen or more like Brother-in-law 
Fleetwood and Uncle Desborough. [Angrily.] 
I'm glad something has brought this milk-and- 
water game to an end. [Exit.] 

[Enter Richard and JVhaley.] 

Whaley [to the sentinels], "Runnymede." 
[They salute.] 

Richard. Appearances bear you out. The 
consequence of not being a tyrant is upon me. 

Whaley. The ground is cut from under you 
in every direction. We have not been able to judge 
how much of the army has gone over. Fleetwood 
came to me a few hours ago, quaking and flutter- 
ing with indecision — 

Richard. It wounds me for Fleetwood to 
have hesitated — 

Whaley. He made up his mind in a hurry 
when the idea that his soldiers might make him 
Protector began buzzing. He is against you. 

70 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Richard. Well, a brother-in-law is not so 
near. Now if my Uncle Desborough — 

Whaley. Desborough and Lambert are the 
organizers of the rebels. 

Richard. Is it a gift of mine to drive away 
men I have not injured? 

Whaley. The thing is, to have the gift of 
not letting the men you need get away. 

Richard. Why should they have turned 
against me so soon? 

Whaley. They were organized, waiting for 
their chance during your father's lifetime. Why, 
the moment Charles Stuart landed in France he be- 
gan to bridge the Channel for his return, with 
promises of peerages and country estates. No 
later than yesterday a title was dangled before 
me — 

Richard. Yes, the Stuarts are willing to give 
us almost half ; but, Whaley, come what may, we'll 
not compromise. 

Whaley. Ah, Your Highness, that is the 
spirit for this crisis. By striking now, suddenly 
and terribly, you will end all opposition. After 
to-day it will be too late — their plans will be ma- 
tured, their lines extended, and your own following 
demoralized. 

Richard. But an hour ago I stood with those 
men in a sunny circle, glowing with fellowship, and 

71 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



pleasant, cordial humor; and now I am to arrest 
and try and, perhaps, execute them I 

Whaley. Arrest? Trial? If they do not 
die on the spot they will reign to-morrow. 

Richard. I can't begin killing so soon ! 

Whaley. Leave it to me. I'll spare you the 
unpleasantness of It I 

Richard. The responsibility would be the 
same. 

Whaley. I was not thinking of a general 
massacre; only Lambert, Monk, Desborough, 
Fleetwood, Cooper, and Harrison. The smaller 
fry may be given a chance to do better. 

Richard. Was all the blood shed during the 
Revolution in vain ? 

Whaley. Leadership Is something which 
men hew their way to through rights and vows and 
bones and hearts. Soft-heartedness Is more dan- 
gerous to Its citadels than an army. ^Disturbance 
and lights and shouts in the street, A voice is 
heard, **Down with Cromwell; long live the 
Kingr] 

Richard. I had dreamed that I might do 
something to lessen the misery In the world; and, 
lo, the opportunity to do so beckons to me from the 
Inevitable shambles, and out of miasmas darkened 
by the vision of sad-ey'd widows and unkempt or- 
phans. We blossom here but for a day upon the 
tough, gnarled oak of Time ; and it is strange and 

72 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



woeful incongruity for us to have been given, un- 
like other blossoms, the power to injure one an- 
other, and the sophistry to excuse the use of that 
power, as for a far-off, impalpable good. Fragile, 
bruised by storms, fast fading, and yet warring 
and slaying — it must be that Adam and his chil- 
dren were set here by the paramount spirits of di- 
viner spheres to antic out, as their antipodes in 
thought and word and deed, a burlesque chapter 
in a light comedy, stag'd on one star, and watch'd 
from all the others. [Shouts and trampling at the 
entrance.^ 

[Enter Ingoldshy, giving the countersign^] 

Ingoldsby. Fleetwood is surrounding the 
palace with his musketeers. 

Whaley. Already? O, we should have 
struck the first blow. [To Richard.] Your back 
is to the wall; you have no option left but this 
[drawing his sword] : to cut your way out; set up 
your standard and rally your friends to it. 

Richard. A great opportunity is lifting it- 
self up to me. 

Whaley. Yes, yes ; your sword. 

Richard [shakes his head]. Not that way. 

Whaley. I'll find a way out, and back. 
Come, Ingoldsby, it is not too late to fetch our men 
and stamp out this treason. [Exit Whaley and 
Ingoldsby f L.] 

[Enter Fleetwood^ Desborough, Lambert, 

n 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



Monk, and Sir Anthony, with drawn swords, 
R, The sentinels surrender. 1 
Fleetwood [?o Richard']. Surrender! 
Richard [recoiling]. Surrender? 
Lambert. Surrender ! 
Richard. Surrender? Prove that I must. 
We'll reason with our swords. \_They fight. 
Fleetwood is disarmed.] Not all sophistry Is so 
easy to refute. [Desborough falls.] Another 
poor logican. [Lambert makes a clumsy thrust, 
giving Richard an opening. Richard, with his 
sword at Lamberfs throat, as if to run him 
through, stops. Lambert drops his sword.] A 
feebler argument will never he put up until your 
good deeds are summoned to raise their voice for 
you at Heaven's bar. 

[Enter Whaley and Ingoldsby with troop, L., 
with swords drawn. The troop deploys and 
is about to charge Fleetwood and the others. 
Enter Fleetwood's troop, R. The troop de- 
ploys, and the two forces stand opposed, 
ready and eager for the fray.] 
Richard. Stop ! None of that old formula 
for propping up a King; none of that dreary game 
of cutting throats, and breaking faith, which, like 
the traveller lost in the wilderness, circles ever back 
to its starting-point. I may not put an end to it, but 
I'll not join in it, and add weight to the supposition 
that the harpy who tore at the vitals of Prometheus 

74 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



begot the lines who battle for our thrones. {Ad- 
dressing his sword.'] Farewell, good sword, thou 
shalt be no harpy's claw. {^Breaks, and dashes 
away his sword.'\ 

Fleetwood. What terms do you propose ? 

Richard. None. I propose none; and 
will accept none. 

Fleetwood. The offer of a peerage holds 
good. 

Richard. Go, post your guards; England is 
yours ; let your flood of mercenaries cover it, but 
the Heart of the universe, who pulsateth His en- 
ergies, in the tuning of wrongs into music, and of 
sorrows into halleluiahs — He will wither your 
power, and from the seed I sow to-day will cause 
to grow and flourish the sweetest tree of His rose- 
garden, in whose shade your children's children, 
weeping, with the rest of humanity, will dry their 
tears. 

[Whaley throws his sword to the floor; then 
hides his face in his hands, and weeps. In" 
go Ids by turns to his troop dejectedly.] 

\_Enter Frances.] 

[She is clad in rags. She shoulders her way in, 
through the soldiers, her hair dishevelled 
and her look wild.] 

Frances. I must see the Protector. I have 
business of importance with the Protector. [To 
Richard.] Your Highness, I came to tell you my 

75 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



secret. Shh! I have been chosen Queen of the 
Beggars. I'm to teach them humility, and to set 
their fashions. The Queen they've lost was a mis- 
fit, — Madonna-visag'd, and with step like that of 
the ghost of some dead Oberon. I'll give to rags 
a new meaning, and to patchwork an undying 
vogue Ishe strikes a queenly pose^ and for that 
I'll wring gratitude from the rocks where the world 
stores it. I go to tread the paths of glory, and 
thou, kind heart, go thou, to be a common, dusty 
road for suffering to tramp over. If thou wouldst 
parcel thyself out into as many fragments as there 
may be men between this day and the last. — Ha I 
Ha ! Ha ! — the Queens of the Beggars will make 
due allotment to each, so that one and all shall have 
from thee an estate, with properties and revenues. 
[She sees Monk, near whom Lamherfs sword has 
fallen.'] O, here's a sword that's inhabited. \^She 
seizes sword.~\ See, it carries on its edge the same" 
base varlet that does the bidding of the adder's 
fang. O, George Monk, it were the noblest mo- 
ment of thy life to be visited by the basest of var- 
lets. [^She stabs Monk. As he falls he is caught 
by Sir Anthony and Fleetwood, who bear him of.] 
Hoi Ho! Wrong is dead. Ha! Ha! Ha! 
\_She rushes from the stage, shrieking and exult- 
ing, in the throng, which departs with and after 
her. Huzzahs without.] 

Richard. I lay these trappings down. 

76 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



[Tears off the insigna of his office,"] They shall 
not become gyves upon a thousand bleeding wrists, 
and [indicating himself] upon one pride-weak- 
en'd, glory-lam'd soul. [Takes up, one at a 
time J his purple mantle, and the fragments of his 
sword, and the golden sceptre of state.] No 
relic here to solace absence and gloom. So 
many symbols of greatness, and nothing in any of 
them to defy the terror-haunted silences, by call- 
ing up the echoes of long-hushed voices, or to quell 
lamentations and tears, by sounding the diapason 
of the proofs of their groundlessness. Of their 
groundlessness? Ay! Though wrong be the 
pilot, defeat the haven, and shame the pennant. 
Ay! Though the truce between wisdom and pas- 
sion be broken, and their battling squadrons go 
storming and desolating across my heart. Ay! 
Though the eagle within thee, O, strong and ten- 
der, look with contempt upon the feebleness of 
thy son. Ay ! Though I quit the lists like a craven 
and a cypher, and shall never know whether a time- 
hidden victory or an undying infamy comes of it; 
but thou, O, strong and tender, thou wilt know, 
with thy outlook backward, beyond chaos and its 
antecedent voids, and forward, through the spring- 
ing up and fading out of worlds, in succession swift 
as that among winter-driven birds, streaming 
south. [Shouts, lights, and clashing of arms with- 
out. A voice: ^'King Charles* scaffold was here; 

77 



THE TWO CROMWELLS 



let lis redeem it with a Cromwell!* An angry roar 
goes up.] Is this thy sweet voice, are these thy gen- 
tle agents, Death? Art thou not satisfied with my 
surrender to thy twin-brother. Oblivion, whom 
men hate more than thee, and who, following fast 
where thou hast ravaged, stamps out memories 
and fames ? I would not say one pleading word to 
thee, though thy dagger bore on its tip a poison to 
pervert and history all the good motives of thy 
slain into bad, for if there has been frankincense 
or myrrh in my life, it will not be lost when I am 
ground in that mortar, wherein God's will is the 
pestle, which men call eternity. 

\^He opens door at the rear. On the outside is 
seen a red glare and a wild mob, into which 
he disappears.} 



[The End.] 



78 



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